Ukemi Painting and Night Rainbows

A couple of weeks ago I was passing through Salzburg and had a couple of hours to spare so of course had to pop by the Museum, as it had won the European Musem of the Year 2009 Award. Unofrtunatly as I didn't have a whole lot of time i spent most of my time in the 2 galleries which drew my attention most. Those of you who know me will no be surprised to hear that these were a Japanese art exhibition, and a photography exhibition by a Japanese artist. I didn'thave my camera (who goes on holiday without a camera?!) but thanks to google I have attached some video and images for those interested. Anyway... the photography was on rainbows and night rainbows (had to buy the book the idea was so cracking lol) by Junji Takasago http://junjitakasago.com/index.html and i have to say it was very impressive. The idea that rainbows can be seen at night is pretty awesome. The selection displayed were photos from New Zealand and Hawaii... polynesian places always get the coolest weather things! If you have a look at his website be sure to check out the gallery of rainbows and aurora.

The Art of Japan exhibition was to celebrate the 140 years of friendship between Austria and Japan, and contained a wide variety of decorative arts and traditional prints. The main artist shown was Ando Hiroshige http://www.hiroshige.org.uk/

There were kimono's from the traditional theatre, photography of modern architecture, ceramics, and a video demonstrating Ukemi painting. This caught my attention and I really like sitting watching it... i generally don't have the patience to watch the whole of videos in mueums for some reason. Ukemi painting is kind of using your body to paint by doing Ukemi Judo rolls. It reminded me of painting with your feet and hands when you were a kind and got to walk about on wallpaper with poster pain squidging between your toes. I can imagine that Ukemi painting is just as satifying (the pink paint/crossroads one definately would be, see below).There was meant to be a live preformance by Yuji Sasaki and his team of this painting process this weekend but i havent found anything on YouTube of it yet... instead here is the video from the gallery and also another one i found quite interesting :) Enjoy!
Ukemi Blue http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lC6KoutMxE
Ukemi Pink Crossroads http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbU48Mo4KjU